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A dinosaur party

Connor has been asking about his birthday, pretty much every day since his last birthday. He also asks if it is Christmas, Halloween or if the tooth fairy is going to come on any day of the week. I think Elfie might need to make an appearance with some Easter eggs this summer just to keep him happy!

This year I decided he was old enough to invite some of his friends from day care and yet, we know that is still very important to have a family party. Next year, I think we will have a combined family party for both kids since they are so close, just three weeks apart, but separate kids parties, especially when Amelia is old enough. I had a strategy – family brunch in the morning, kid party in the afternoon – because I am a NUT!

Brunch was pretty simple, quiche made the night before, bacon and a huge bowl of fresh strawberries. I wanted to do a little more with some fancy veggie dish or muffins, but that just didn’t happen. We also ordered cupcakes from a family friend for a sweet treat in the morning.

Cupcakes!

I decorated with balloons and more tissue paper flowers. I tried and stick with green, orange and purple. Although the balloons came in blue and green, they did give us a discount. Connor loved the flowers I made for Amelia’s pink party, so I made some additional purple and orange ones for his party. I try and use color a lot to tie themes together, like Amelia’s pink party. Simple bright colored napkins and balloons can add a lot and are usually much cheaper than whatever cartoon character my son might be into in a given year.

Bright colored napkins and plastic silverware add so much!

I did too much research on Pinterest looking at party ideas so my mommy guilt was pretty high when trying to plan the kid party. I probably planned too many party games and activities and they all would have been happy running around and just playing. But alas, that wouldn’t be very exciting to blog about! First we welcomed our guests with dinosaur footprints!

Dino feet!

I did make a dinosaur cake. I love the birthday cake ideas from Parenting.com. They are cute and super simple. Snacks were dinosaur eggs (peanut m&ms) and stegosaurus plates (tortilla chips). To drink – green limeade of course!

Orange creamsicle cake with purple frosting!

We started with temporary tattoos and party hat decorating while the kids arrived. I bought plain party hats in primary colors and pulled out all of Connor’s stickers. This was moderately successful. During that particular moment, all of the kids deciding to invade my bedroom. So we quickly moved on to something a little bit more engaging/large motor. We had a scavenger hunt for dinosaur bones.

Dinosaur bones! (aka dog bones)

We played pin the party hat on the dinosaur. Connor had way more fun helping me make the dinosaur than playing. I lightly drew a dinosaur on green tag board and he went to town painting it. Then I cut out the dino and traced it and added a few details with a black sharpie, then glued to white tag board. He did not want to cover his eyes and only took his turn at the very end of the party when his friends were off running around.

Pin the hat on the hat on the dinosaur

The big hit what digging for dinosaur bones and cracking them open! I need to do a whole separate post on these bad boys. They were awesome, super simple and absolutely LOVED by all the kids.

Digging for dinosaur eggs!

A great birthday party marathon and Connor can’t wait to do it all again!

What a cute party idea! I am sure my boys would have loved this when they were younger! I will share it with my sister in law for my nephews though – they’re the perfect age for it now! Thanks for linking up with us at LOBS!!